Muriel Kirby wanted her daughter's killer found.

Jeannette Kirby's body was discovered bound and stabbed near a trail she frequently walked in Delhi Township in June 1986. Fifteen years later, in 2002, the case remained unsolved.

"They called it a cold case after a year or two. I said, 'No, they can't,'" said Kirby, a Lansing resident and founder of the Mid-Michigan Chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. "I did a lot of walking and a lot of pushing, probably did some begging."

She was the third person to walk into newly-elected Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth's office in 1989, Wriggelsworth said.

Shortly after, two new detectives were assigned to the case.

"They just started from scratch and dug right in," said Kirby, 82. After extensive searching, the detectives found someone who had never been interviewed.

"He said he'd been waiting for someone to come and talk to him; he showed (the officer) where he had some flex cuffs," he said.

The flex cuffs, or plastic handcuffs, matched the kind used to restrain Jeannette Kirby as she was stabbed, and were ultimately used to convict David Draheim and sentence him to 60 years or more in prison in 2002. The interviewee knew Drahiem, and said the two split a box of flex cuffs.

"These men and women, they're hiding," Kirby said. "But they can be found."

Wriggelsworth said the Kirby conviction planted the idea of a more permanent cold case division.

"If we can do it once, we can do it again," Wriggelsworth said. "I don't think it was a new idea, it was just new that we tried it here locally."

That idea developed into the Ingham County Cold Case Homicide Task Force.

The force

The sheriff's department spearheaded the formation of the Ingham County Cold Case Homicide Task Force in May 2003, sheriff's department Detective Lt. Jeff Joy said. Then other departments joined in.

The newly formed team looked at a stack of old Ingham County cases and picked the two with the highest solvability factor, a formula that determines the likelihood a case will be solved.

"Families want to know a loved one is not just left in a box on a shelf," said Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Timothy Coolidge.

The Meridian Township, Lansing and East Lansing police departments all have open cases, Coolidge said.

"We've been approached by other agencies across the state," Coolidge said. But next on the list is a case from MSU, followed by one from the Michigan State Police.

In July, the force began work on a third case - the 1973 murder of MSU student Martin Brown, MSU police Detective Lt. Doug Monette said.

Coolidge said the sheriff's department combined forces with other agencies to pool resources and manpower.

"Even though we all wear different colored uniforms, we're all working toward the same goal," he said. "It's a networking of departments. Experience brings different perspectives."

The sheriff's department employs two full-time officers, but others in the task force have to juggle their cold case investigations with everyday work.

"We all have different resources to get the job done," Monette said.

By having officers from different departments, and by making task force members wear different hats, Wriggelsworth said the department hasn't become a huge financial burden.

"All departments have a tight budget, but these (task forces) can be worked effectively," Monette said. "Very progressive departments look at ways to handle these cases and upcoming cases."

Technology

New technology has helped introduce new leads and pushed many older cases forward, officers said.

"One of the keys nowadays is if you take a 16-, 20-, 25-year-old case, the technology has changed exponentially," Wriggelsworth said.

Officers can use superglue to preserve fingerprints, then match them to a national directory on a computer, rather than comparing each pattern by sight.

DNA imprinting, made popular during the last decade by everything from high-profile murder cases to paternity tests on "The Jerry Springer Show," is the greatest improvement, officers said.

Members of the task force also utilize their departments' violent crimes unit, crime labs, surveillance services and computer crimes divisions. The officers also have a liaison with the prosecutor's office.

But the speediest computers and largest databases don't always guarantee success, Monette said.

"You're always going to run into obstacles," Monette said. "You've just got to be ready for it."

Retracing steps

DNA analysis and the newest technology aren't the only keys to solving old crimes.

There's no set length of time before a case becomes "cold," Monette said. It's the leads that matter - the people who come forward with new tips.

And new leads are what set the cold case division back on track.

"Cases are always open - when a new lead comes, the agency jumps on it," Joy said.

Starting an old case over also means looking at evidence from different angles.

"We've thought outside the box; this hasn't been your typical investigation," Monette said.

Officers talk with many of the same people interviewed dozens of years ago. In some cases, their stories have changed.

"Time is not your enemy," Coolidge said. "Alliances fall apart, they have a falling out, or they're looking at the pearly gates and they'd rather get it done with than look at the fiery pit.

"People's memories are funny things."

Officers talked with original investigators as well as witnesses and acquaintances. For one case, the original officers included Wriggelsworth, who was the first officer who made it to the scene of a 1968 murder that was chosen for the task force.

"We give it a whole fresh look and put aside old bias," Coolidge said.

Reinterviewing led the task force to new suspects, as well as other surprises.

"Interviews led us to eliminating someone who was a suspect for quite a long time, for almost two decades," Coolidge said. "It's our job to clear them, too, to put some closure on these cases."

Retired Michigan State Police Lt. Ken Daniel was called in to help the young task force get its collective feet wet.

Reinterviewing was key to all four of the cases Daniel helped solve when he started the Cold Case Team of Southwest Michigan in Wayland, he said.

"All of those convictions were solved because of looking up old document evidence, timeline evidence, and placing people where they said they weren't," Daniel said.

Goals

Officers said endless interviews and dead ends can get frustrating.

"I'm not going to be so bold to say we're going to solve all our cold cases, but it gives families who have been languishing at least a glimmer of hope," Wriggelsworth said.

The everyday branches of the three departments also benefit, he said.

"It gives the officers a chance to utilize the new technology, to get familiar with it," he said. "It will show people their police organization is contemporary if something unfortunate does happen to them, or a friend or neighbor."

Patience is important in the cold case division, Monette said.

"If the case went unsolved for 18 years, there's a reason for it," he said, comparing the time invested in an old homicide to a marathon.

"You build good working relationships, and that gets you through the hard times," Monette said of the camaraderie in the task force.

Daniel said work on cold cases is tiring, but satisfying.

"Out of my 25 years with the Michigan State Police, that two and a half years (in the cold case division) was a very strong highlight," he said.

"The work is hard, but the reward is great."

Shannon Houghton can be reached at hought27@msu.edu.